In the field of oil and gas exploration and production, it is common to install an assembly of valves, spools and fittings on a wellhead for the control of fluid flow into or out of the well. Such flow systems typically include a Christmas tree, which is a type of fluid manifold used in the oil and gas industry in surface well and subsea well configurations. A Christmas tree has a wide range of functions, including chemical injection, well intervention, pressure relief and well monitoring. Christmas trees are also used to control the injection of water or other fluids into a wellbore to control production from the reservoir.
There are a number of reasons why it is desirable to access a flow system in an oil and gas production system (generally referred to as an “intervention”). In the context of this specification, the term “fluid intervention” is used to encapsulate any method which accesses a flow line, manifold or tubing in an oil and gas production, injection or transportation system. This includes (but is not limited to) accessing a flow system for fluid sampling, fluid diversion, fluid recovery, fluid injection, fluid circulation, fluid measurement and/or fluid metering. This can be distinguished from full well intervention operations, which generally provide full (or near full) access to the wellbore. Full well intervention processes and applications are often technically complex, time-consuming and have a different cost profile to fluid intervention operations. It will be apparent from the following description that the present invention has application to full well intervention operations. However, it is an advantage of the invention that full well intervention may be avoided, and therefore preferred embodiments of the invention provide methods and apparatus for fluid intervention which do not require full well intervention processes.
International patent application numbers WO00/70185, WO2005/047646 and WO2005/083228 describe a number of configurations for accessing a hydrocarbon well via a choke body on a Christmas tree. Although a choke body provides a convenient access point in some applications, the methods of WO00/70185, WO2005/047646, and WO2005/083228 do have a number of disadvantages. Firstly, a Christmas tree is a complex and carefully-designed piece of equipment. The choke performs an important function in production or injection processes, and its location on the Christmas tree is selected to be optimal for its intended operation. Where the choke is removed from the choke body, as proposed in the prior art, the choke must be repositioned elsewhere in the flow system to maintain its functionality. This compromises the original design of the Christmas tree, as it requires the choke to be located in a sub-optimal position.
Secondly, a choke body on a Christmas tree is typically not designed to support dynamic and/or static loads imparted by intervention equipment and processes. Typical loads on a choke body in normal use would be of the order of 0.5 to 1 tonnes, and the Christmas tree is engineered with this in mind. In comparison, a typical flow metering system as contemplated in the prior art may have a weight of the order of 2 to 3 tonnes, and the dynamic loads may be more than three times that value. Mounting a metering system (or other fluid intervention equipment) on the choke body therefore exposes that part of the Christmas tree to loads in excess of those that it is designed to withstand, creating a risk of damage to the structure. This problem may be exacerbated in deepwater applications, where even greater loads may be experienced due to thicker and/or stiffer components used in the subsea infrastructure.
In addition to the load restrictions identified above, positioning the flow intervention equipment on the choke body may limit the access available to large items of process equipment and/or access of divers or remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to the process equipment or other parts of the tree.
Furthermore, modifying the Christmas tree so that the chokes are in non-standard positions is generally undesirable. It is preferable for divers and/or ROV operators to be completely familiar with the configuration of components on the Christmas tree, and deviations in the location of critical components are preferably avoided.
Another drawback of the prior art proposals is that not all Christmas trees have chokes integrated with the system; approaches which rely on Christmas tree choke body access to the flow system are not applicable to these types of tree.
It is amongst the objects of the invention to provide a method and apparatus for accessing a flow system in an oil and gas production system, which addresses one or more drawbacks or disadvantages of the prior art. In particular, it is amongst the objects of the invention to provide a method and apparatus for fluid intervention in an oil and gas production system, which addresses one or more drawbacks of the prior art. An object of the invention is to provide a flexible method and apparatus suitable for use with and/or retrofitting to industry standard or proprietary oil and gas production manifolds, including Christmas trees.
It is an aim of at least one aspect or embodiment of the invention to provide an apparatus which may be configured for use in both a subsea fluid injection operation and a production fluid sampling operation and a method of use.
An aim of at least one aspect of the invention is to provide a flow control valve which is improved with respect to flow control valves of the prior art. A further aim of at least one aspect of the invention is to provide a flow control valve which facilitates the use of novel flow system access methods and fluid intervention operations.
Further objects and aims of the invention will become apparent from the following description.